This article argues that the capacity of smell to bypass the logical brain makes smell a great potential tool for marketers. View Summary

This article argues that the capacity of smell to bypass the logical brain makes smell a great potential tool for marketers.

With all of the other senses, people think before they respond, but with scent, their brain responds before they think.

Scent is often overlooked in the process of building brands, yet research shows that 75% of emotions are generated by smell and we rely on our sense of smell almost as much as on our sense of sight.

Hotels, spas and bodycare lines are capitalising on this but the right scent can help build a more personal connection with the consumer for many brands.

4

IHG Rewards Club: The big win

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Effie Worldwide, Silver, North America Effies 2015

This case study explains how IHG, the hotels company, leveraged the data it collected in its loyalty program to deliver tailored experiences and rewards to business customers. View Summary

This case study explains how IHG, the hotels company, leveraged the data it collected in its loyalty program to deliver tailored experiences and rewards to business customers.

Business traveller loyalty is a core part of IHG's business, but its loyalty program was in decline, with fewer members and a smaller contribution to revenue.

A loyalty program that was personalised and customisable included nearly 400,000 unique offers and rewards, that were delivered to members of the program depending on their habits, allowing everyone to benefit in the way that was of most value to them.

The scheme delivered growth in incremental revenue against a reduced marketing budget, and increased loyalty metrics including engagement, sign-ups and bookings.

5

Hotels.com: Making the invisible choice the obvious choice

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Effie Worldwide, Finalist, North America Effies

This case study explains how Hotels.com, a travel booking website, introduced a new brand character to differentiate itself in the US. View Summary

This case study explains how Hotels.com, a travel booking website, introduced a new brand character to differentiate itself in the US.

The company was coming under pressure from competitors, and needed to differentiate its brand to attract more traffic and bookings.

It decided to create a brand character - Captain Obvious - to show how easy Hotels.com was to use, and how transparent its dealings were.

The campaign began with a series of high profile TV spots, followed by radio, digital and OOH executions.

Captain Obvious helped Hotels.com increase its traffic - which went up by 30% year-on-year for new visitors, and 21% year-on-year for return visitors.

This event report outlines how HotelTonight, an app enabling last-minute hotel reservations, is aiming to transform the travel category.

Major players like Expedia, Priceline and Orbitz rapidly made the journey from disruption to mainstream adoption, but were initially designed for desktop browsing and booking.

HotelTonight has taken a mobile-first approach, streamlining the number of hotels listed and working with accommodation providers to secure goods prices on last-minute inventory.

To stay top of mind among consumers – a vital goal in the travel sector – the firm has focused on innovation, shifted towards brand-building and gained a deep understanding of its user base and the industry as a whole.

7

How Airbnb plans for "super-brand" status

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Geoffrey Precourt, Event Reports, 4A's Transformation, March 2015

This event report details how Airbnb, the online accommodation rental service, is leveraging marketing at a time of rapid growth. View Summary

This event report details how Airbnb, the online accommodation rental service, is leveraging marketing at a time of rapid growth.

The firm wants to be a "community-driven super-brand", a goal initially fuelled by word of mouth, but now also activated by tapping its own "cultural ideology".

Just as Coca-Cola is associated with happiness and Nike with human potential, so Airbnb hopes to capture the notion of "belonging" anywhere and everywhere.

Airbnb's business has developed at an almost exponential rate, and its marketing needs to be similarly dynamic and real time to reflect that process.

8

How Snow White inspired Airbnb's brand strategy

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Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, South by Southwest, March 2015

This event report outlines how storyboards have helped shape Airbnb's core brand mission, as well as assisting in its day-to-day projects. View Summary

This event report outlines how storyboards have helped shape Airbnb's core brand mission, as well as assisting in its day-to-day projects.

Inspired by Walt Disney’s use of storyboards in the film "Snow White", Airbnb decided to adopt the same approach in order to envision the "perfect trip".

Focusing on this model first and foremost, rather than giving specific metrics pride of place, ensures the company remains customer-centric.

At the project level, this tactic can help unite teams behind a common goal and ensure that features are not prioritised over genuine customer wants and needs.

9

How Starwood hosts a customer-centric mobile experience

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Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, ANA Mobile First, December 2014

This event report explains how Starwood, the hotel company, uses a mobile app to provide a better experience for customers. View Summary

This event report explains how Starwood, the hotel company, uses a mobile app to provide a better experience for customers.

The 'Starwood Preferred Guest' mobile app allows customers to learn about hotels, book rooms and check-in.

Though it is tempting to include all possible features in the app, the company focusses on services that will be useful - and regularly checks reviews and adapts the based based on user feedback.

The app also incorporates Apple's Passbook, which allows users to store flight details, boarding passes and more, and changes based on what people need in the moment.

10

Best Western Hotels GB: Happiness is...

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Direct Marketing Association - UK, Gold, DMA Awards, 2014

This case study explains how Best Western, the hotel chain, used an emotional message in a climate of austerity to increase winter sales in the UK. View Summary

This case study explains how Best Western, the hotel chain, used an emotional message in a climate of austerity to increase winter sales in the UK.

In this climate of low consumer confidence hotel stays were usually sold through discounting, but Best Western decided to take an emotional approach.

Direct mailings focussed on the promise of a post-Christmas break, targeting loyal customers with an 'early bird' discount, and then the broader market.

It delivered a 105% increase in sales versus the previous year, with new customers - 40% of the total - brought in through digital ads.

This article demonstrates how hotel chain Holiday Inn executed the global relaunch of its brand family.

The original hotel concept had grown stale and outdated, and maintaining relevancy while protecting its core equity was challenging.

Holiday Inn needed to reach consumers at a deeper level, as well as deliver improvements to the physical products and so focused on meeting the different need states of its guests, depending on their travel.

The brand has strategically invested in digital media and looks for ways to be more inclusive with a diverse and multicultural customer base.

Verchele Wiggins, vice president of InterContinental Hotels Group which owns Holiday Inn, offers five best practices for business including always do the right thing for the customer, yourself and your team, and people don't care what you know until they know that you care.

This event report shows how The Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas and United Airlines created a new media channel to connect with flyers travelling to the city. View Summary

This event report shows how The Cosmopolitan Hotel of Las Vegas and United Airlines created a new media channel to connect with flyers travelling to the city.

While The Cosmopolitan boasted strong occupancy levels and brand awareness, it wanted to attract more visitors to it property for gaming, dining and events.

To achieve that goal, it created a set of mock "playing cards" providing offers, deals and useful information for passengers flying to Las Vegas on domestic United flights.

By meeting the needs of visitors to Las Vegas, many of which conducted little pre-planning, in a context where its competitors were not represented, the resort was able to meet its core brand objectives.

13

Hilton Worldwide in Travel and Tourism (World)

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Euromonitor Profiles, October 2014

This Company Profile from Euromonitor provides key details and analysis of Hilton Worldwide. Included is a strategic evaluation with key facts about the US based company, competitive positioning against comparative brands, and assessment of its position in the hotels and resorts market. View Summary

This Company Profile from Euromonitor provides key details and analysis of Hilton Worldwide. Included is a strategic evaluation with key facts about the US based company, competitive positioning against comparative brands, and assessment of its position in the hotels and resorts market. Brand opportunities, operations and strategy are identified and recommendations for the future offered.

This case study explains how Premier Inn, the budget hotel chain in the UK, built its brand to expand its business despite a stagnant market. View Summary

This case study explains how Premier Inn, the budget hotel chain in the UK, built its brand to expand its business despite a stagnant market.

Premier Inn's ambition was to expand its capacity by 50% and in order to do this profitably it needed to buck the trend towards market commoditisation and instead invest in building its brand.

Communications focused on establishing Premier Inn's points of superiority in the market which guaranteed visitors a good night's sleep.

Through this simple promise Premier Inn has grown to become the strongest hotel brand in the UK and the campaign has generated over £593.5m in incremental revenue and a ROMI of 3.38.

16

Red Roof Inn: Turning flight cancellations into customers

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MMA Smarties, Gold, MMA Smarties, 2014

This case study describes how Red Roof Inn, the economy hotel chain, used mobile search technology to match stranded US air travellers with nearby available accommodation, outsmarting its bigger-budget rivals. View Summary

This case study describes how Red Roof Inn, the economy hotel chain, used mobile search technology to match stranded US air travellers with nearby available accommodation, outsmarting its bigger-budget rivals.

Search engines had become a daunting place for the brand, which, operating on a fraction of the media budget of its larger rivals, was losing visibility.

With a limited budget, Red Roof Inn's objective was to identify a new way to penetrate the mobile search market and beat the competition.

The mobile component and flight-tracking technology it built allowed it to identify relevant prospects and invest at the moment customers entered the market, blending real-time need, convenience and mobile search.

The campaign put the brand in first position for 75% of key last-minute queries in Google, resulting in a 266% increase in non-brand mobile bookings and a 650% increase in share-of-voice for key travel search queries.

17

Thistle Hotel: Kids in charge

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PMAA Dragons of Asia, Bronze Award, 2014

This case study describes how Thistle Hotel Port Dickson targeted Malaysian families, expatriates and potential tourists to highlight major renovations and showcase the hotel as a family destination. View Summary

This case study describes how Thistle Hotel Port Dickson targeted Malaysian families, expatriates and potential tourists to highlight major renovations and showcase the hotel as a family destination.

Thistle needed to advise its target audience that its Thistle Hotel resort in Port Dickson, Malaysia, was changing focus to become a family hotel and would undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation to accommodate this.

It developed a Kids In Charge campaign, which invited children aged 8 to 14 to apply to become 'directors' of the resort, giving them the opportunity to join the Thistle 'board' and say what they would like to see and experience in a family hotel.

The campaign established the hotel's new direction and image, ROI was in excess of 13000%, and occupancy rates at the hotel increased from under 50% to more than 90% just two months into the campaign.

18

Tracking the footprint of the digital consumer: A global benchmark for consumers' habits across web, mobile, GPS locations and social media

This paper provides practical advice for market researchers who feel overwhelmed by the amount of data generated by new technologies and want to incorporate traditional research methods into this new 'paradigm'. View Summary

This paper provides practical advice for market researchers who feel overwhelmed by the amount of data generated by new technologies and want to incorporate traditional research methods into this new 'paradigm'.

The explosion of new technology has opened up new possibilities for people, and the data generated by what people do can create information overload for researchers.

A hybrid or multi mode approach can help researchers to interpret and generate insight from big data.

Some conventional data points, such as demographic profiles, or time-based measurements, never change - these can be used as a reference point for new types of data.

Getting closer to the customer experience can yield rich and accurate data, and advances in technology allow researchers to get closer to this.

19

How Choice Hotels turned data into dollars

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Stephen Whiteside, Event Reports, ARF Audience Measurement, June 2014

This event report explains how Choice Hotels, the global hotel company, has used digital ad data to improve its digital ROI and increase revenue. View Summary

This event report explains how Choice Hotels, the global hotel company, has used digital ad data to improve its digital ROI and increase revenue.

A marketing-mix model was brought in to understand how different types of advertising impact on sales, replacing a range of incomparable ROI measures.

Ad efficiency was improved by placing limits on numbers of ads served and optimising ad sizes, following some surprising findings.

Retargeting based on characteristics such as purpose of travel and age group generated an incremental ROI increase of 12%.

This articles describes how Meliá Hotels International, the hotel chain, used digital media ads to target UK consumers with its Spanish hotels. Facebook Exchange was used, supported by a Direct Response Booster which was able to gather data, optimise during the campaign and retarget ads. The campaign KPI was cost per order, with revenue and costs tracked throughout the campaign. Targeting based on data insights allowed the campaign to find the most valuable individuals, with target cost per order exceeded target by 36.2%.

21

Using big data for insights-driven conversion

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Low Lai Chow, Event Reports, ad:tech Jakarta, May 2014

This event report discusses how Amari Hotels, the Thai resort group, used data to understand the impact of digital ads on sales. View Summary

This event report discusses how Amari Hotels, the Thai resort group, used data to understand the impact of digital ads on sales.

Attribution modelling can be used to understand the consumer journey and the relative impact of different digital media.

The focus of big data analysis should be on extracting data from two or more data collection systems, and then generating actionable insights.

Reach is the single greatest predictor of effectiveness, but companies should look to find any 'blind spots' to fully understand effectiveness, and then work to address them.

Mobile meets travel in Asia: Tips from Expedia, Starwood and Resorts World Sentosa

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Low Lai Chow, Event Reports, eTail Asia, March 2014

This event report shows how three travel brands are using mobile to reach consumers in Asia. Expedia, best-known as a bookings platform, is seeking to expand its remit by tailoring its website for different devices and providing an app that offers various services beyond simply securing tickets and hotel reservations. View Summary

This event report shows how three travel brands are using mobile to reach consumers in Asia. Expedia, best-known as a bookings platform, is seeking to expand its remit by tailoring its website for different devices and providing an app that offers various services beyond simply securing tickets and hotel reservations. Starwood Asia Pacific is similarly attempting to deliver "basic services" on its website, and ensure its app promises value and utility for its loyalty-programme members. Resorts World Sentosa, which runs a huge resort to the south of Singapore, has moved somewhat slower in this space thus far, but is now exploring how its website and app can serve customers before, during and after they visit.

23

The sharing economy: Disrupting traditional business models

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Babar Khan, Market Leader, Quarter 1, 2014, pp. 31-33

This article discusses the rise of the 'sharing economy', which is enabled by increased levels of global connectedness, and explains its attractiveness to venture capitalists. View Summary

This article discusses the rise of the 'sharing economy', which is enabled by increased levels of global connectedness, and explains its attractiveness to venture capitalists. RelayRides, a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace, is given as an example of the business opportunity the sharing economy represents. The sharing economy allows people to access products or services without having to own them, and therefore saving them money. At the same time, companies like RelayRides allow people who own the product to make money from it by renting it to others. For these types of businesses, reputation and trust are particularly important: a high level of transparency helps with this.

24

Travel brands enhance their digital capabilities in Asia

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Low Lai Chow, Event Reports, SES Singapore, December 2013

This event report addresses how Groupon Travel, TripAdvisor and Starwood Hotels and Resorts are using social media to connect with consumers. View Summary

This event report addresses how Groupon Travel, TripAdvisor and Starwood Hotels and Resorts are using social media to connect with consumers. The benefits this channel offers to brands include the ability to reach out directly to their customers, gather feedback and - increasingly - drive incremental sales. Mobile appears to be the next frontier for players in the travel space, not least because it offers the possibility of leveraging geo-location and personalisation technology.

25

InterContinental Hotels: Combating the 'culture of beige'

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MRS Awards, Finalist, December 2013

This article describes how InterContinental Hotels used semiotic and ethnographic research to develop insights about room design. View Summary

This article describes how InterContinental Hotels used semiotic and ethnographic research to develop insights about room design.

The research helped the company to understand guest priorities in marketing communications, such as cleanliness, and how the rooms were being used.

It was found that rooms were in some ways inadequate for guests' needs, leading to the development of a more flexible room design.